August 2026

I came out into the cockpit for a check on the first night and gasped at the magnificent sight of the bright crescent moon holding the faint silver orb of the rest of the moon -poetically called the “old moon in the arms of the new moon”. I sat mesmerized and enjoyed the sight until the moon disappeared shortly after. 

No photo of the magical moon so the sunset will have to do

The tumult of the previous passage had shifted something so that I was open to the full experience of being at sea -the gentleness of the cool breeze, a night sky full of stars, the relative quietness of the ocean. This altered experience had a depth to it. It’s not anything to do with relief that this passage was not like the last one or being grateful that the conditions were optimal -it’s something else that I can’t quite put my finger on. 

This will be a very short blog as the 577nm passage to Fiji was very uneventful – the best kind in my book. It was a peaceful downwind passage with little swell or waves. We started to run out of wind on the third night but managed to keep sailing through the following day and into the last night when we eventually had to put the sails away and motor the remaining 14 hours. The rain that had been threatening to make for a wet landfall didn’t eventuate and we had an easy tie up to the mooring ball at Savusavu on Vanua Levu, the smaller of Fiji’s two main islands. 

Vanua Levu, Fiji

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